Page:The Bohemians of the Latin Quarter.djvu/150

astonishment was gradually operating upon him a transformation similar to that which the untimely curiosity of Lot’s wife brought upon her: by the time that Rodolphe had thrown his last hundred francs on the floor, the painter was petrified all down one side of his body.

Rodolphe laughed and laughed. Compared with his stormy mirth, the thunder of an orchestra of sax-horns would have been no more than the crying of a child at the breast.

Stunned, strangled, stupefied by his emotions, Marcel thought himself in a dream. To drive away the nightmare, he bit his finger till he brought blood, and almost made himself scream with pain. He then perceived that, though trampling upon money, he was perfectly awake. Like a personage in a tragedy, he ejaculated:

“Can I believe my eyes?” and then seizing Rodolphe’s hand, he added: “Explain me this mystery.”

“Did I explain it, ’twould be one no more.”

“Come, now!”

“This gold is the fruit of the sweat of my brow,” said Rodolphe, picking up the money and arranging it on the table. He then went a few steps and looked respectfully at the five hundred francs ranged in heaps, thinking to himself: “Now, then, my dreams will be realized!”

“There cannot be much less than six thousand francs there.” thought Marcel to himself, as he regarded the silver which trembled on the table. “I've an idea! I shall ask Rodolphe to buy my ‘Passage of the Red Sea.’”

All at once Rodolphe put himself into a theatrical attitude, and, with great solemnity of voice and gesture, addresed the artist:

“Listen to me, Marcel: the fortune which has dazzled your eyes is not the product of vile manœuvres; I have not sold my pen; I am rich, but honest. This gold, bestowed